Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The money game


337/365: The Big Money
Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir

Day 3 of the MAGI process about understanding and healing my issues with money and the role it's played in my life.

My first awareness of the impact of money on me is around age 10. I do not have the kinds of things that the other kids have in school. My grandmother sews clothes for me. I am not "cool". My cousins of my mom's sisters' families have lots of stuff that I don't have. My mother frequently says "no" at stores or "We don't have the money for that." In my little scheming head, I will find a way. I get a paper route for a year. Have a German Shepherd almost bite me and get frightened and quit. Shortly after, I am selling Christmas cards door-to-door. I earn things the more I sell. I learn to be VERY charming. I get a chemistry set. I get a Magician's kit. I get a mini greenhouse. Lots of stuff.

The message: "Money gets you things you want when you are told you cannot have them."

As I enter my early teens, I babysit. This gets me cash. I go regularly to fast food places and buy lunches at school and snacks and Wacky Pack cards and other junk. In the summer, I can buy stuff at the public pool when I am swimming with friends. And, if I did enough babysitting, I treat them to stuff. Now, I get to "fit in" with the cool girls.

The message: "Money buys you friends' approval and acceptance."
My people pleasing origins are partially fueled by this very belief.

At 15 going on 16, I am aware that I want to go to college. My father specifically tells me this: "Well miss smarty-pants, if you want to go to college, you will pay your way." I am at war with him at this stage of my life and out to prove him wrong and on a mission to get the hell out of my house and make something of myself. I land a job at McDonald's. I work an insane amount of hours for a high school student. On weekends when my friends are socializing and having fun, I am working round-the-clock. They come through the drive-through window on Friday nights after sports events, high and drunk, and I am giving them big bags full of French fries for free. I am riding my bike at 4am on Saturday and Sunday mornings to be the "opener" , sometimes doing double-shifts if someone calls out. I am getting my first "real" money in the form of paychecks. I am putting them into the bank for college and watching them grow. From hundreds to a thousand and more. While I am resentful at my parents for missing out on all the fun, I am secretly delighting in seeing my way out.

The message: "Money is power and it is freedom."

I arrive at college. I have taken out student loans and am using what I have saved for dorm and meals costs and other expenses. My dorm is across from the student bookstore. I fritter away money on useless things and am buying friends all kinds of stuff. I treat people to take out food. I buy booze. Lots of it. By the end of the first year, I have spent up my money. I work my ass off in the summer in between at 2 fast food places and quickly build up my savings. I spend it up before the Fall semester ends. I bounce my first checks. I make up stories to tell my mother about added school expenses and she sends me periodic checks. They get drunk and eaten away. By my 3rd year at college, I realize I need to get a job there to keep up with my partying expenses. I land a job at a local hoagie shop. This is my ticket. I make good money. I give away hoagies galore to drunk friends. And as my alcoholism grows, I start stealing money from the register to support my habit. A twenty here, a twenty there. I walk to the bar after work and buy rounds of beers and show off. I continue doing this for almost 2 years! Until my senior year, when I am totally drunk during my Friday evening shift and someone from the community who came in to get a hoagie reports me to the owner. She arrives there as I am attempting to wash dishes -- cold water and no soap -- and tells me to go home. And to not come back. My free ride is gone. More lies to mom and made up expenses for a made up internship in psychology. A couple checks come and they are totally drunk up.

The message: "You need money to support your habit. You will do anything to get money. Money is a survival tool."

I graduate from college, barely. As soon as I get home to my parents, I am looking at the classifieds. Must get out of here, be able to drink and drug like I want and make money. I land a job as a live-in supervisor of a group home within 1 week. They will cover my housing (an attached garage apt), my phone, my food, my utilities! This is utopia. My alcoholism soars as I am enabled to not be responsible for any expenses other than a car and personal items. I begin to acquire credit cards. LOTS of them. I am buying clothes like nobody's business. I am treating friends to concerts and limo's to concerts all on credit. I am spending like there's no tomorrow. I am a big shot in my own mind. And I want more. I get a part-time bartending job. Cash and tips. I discover cocaine. Most of my bartending money goes up my nose.

The message: "Money makes you feel on top of the world. It makes you larger than life."

A college friend wants me to move to the city I live in now as she needs a roommate. I want to please her and I have this lofty sense of life and that I can afford to do this. I am soon hit with the reality of rent, utilities and other expenses. I stop making car payments to support my drinking habit. My car is repossessed and I don't understand why. I am scrambling to pay bills. I am in total credit card debt.  I take money from clients' petty cash and fudge receipts. And at the same time am drowning in debt.   I leave this living situation to get a cheaper place downtown where I can walk to work. I default on my student loan. I am eating tuna, rice cakes and peanut butter so I can drink. I have given up the drugs only because I can't afford them. My mother steps in because she receives the notice about the student loan and some of the credit cards at our home address. She makes me get a consolidated debt loan and pay off every last bill. She is furious with me and I am deeply ashamed. This is when the thoughts begin to enter my mind that I must stop drinking. My life is completely unmanageable. I have hit an all-time low. I start trying to control my drinking and still have binges when I have access to friends' booze or when they are treating me. I realize I need to get a job that pays more money. I turn on my charm and convince the training director at the agency I am working to let me into the department even though I have no experience. He does. I am making considerably more. And I am drinking it up just as quickly. From here, I get a training opportunity from a grant-funded program that is going to pay me one lump sum. I believe I've died and gone to heaven. Never had this much money at one shot in my life. I don't pay taxes on it like I am pre-warned to do. I pay my bills in advance and hit my total bottom in terms of drinking. It is at the end of this grant and at the end of my money that I get sober.

The message: "Money appears like it can save you, but it can't."

Newly sober, I am contacted by my old training director for an opportunity to go into the corporate world as a training coordinator. The money is beyond what ever was possible in human services. I clean up good and put on my best facade. I am offered the position.
I am paying bills, paying off debt and even get a gym membership. I believe I've arrived. After 2 years, I decide I want to return to human services and go to a former agency and get a training director position. The salary, however, is much lower than what I'd been making and I do it anyway. I meet my then partner shortly after. I am a big spender with her and suddenly I am struggling with bills again. We move in together and combine our accounts. I am hit with the unpaid tax bill from my grant-funded job, with major penalties and interest. This is a huge point of contention with my then partner and I. I pay it off though, slowly but surely. She criticizes me for being irresponsible. This issue is used against me many times. I get fired up enough inside to get raises and make more. I am watching a 401 K plan grow and grow. I am getting back on my feet and in good graces. From this confident place, I want to start my own business doing training and behavior therapy. I use some of my 401 K to do this. It is slow and I start to make money. And more money. And more than I ever had in my life. We go from better and better rental apartments to finally purchasing a home. I use the rest of my 401 K for the downpayment and now have nothing in savings. I work more and more hours and she works less and less. It is during this time that her father is diagnosed with cancer. She wants to be with him during treatment and not work. I agree. I work insane hours. And we live well. Her mother dies and her father dies and she inherits their home. We rent our former home to a friend. We take out a 2nd mortgage on her parents' home and fix it up fabulously. She is still not working and I am working like a dog so that we can live a particular lifestyle. We travel a lot. We each have nice cars. I am paying for everything. And then she begins drinking. More and more and more. And I am working more and more and more.

The message: "Money can buy you status and lots of things. It cannot buy you happiness."

As her drinking fully progresses, I start acting out and so does she. She is tapping into the home equity line for booze money. I am buying clothes and meals out and coffee and you name it. We are each deeply unhappy. I make a decision to end the relationship and leave. I live with a friend, minimal rent. Out of guilt and obligation, I continue to pay all of the expenses for several more months until we go to mediation. I enter my Kabbalistic program. I get my own apartment. I live fairly meagerly at first. And I am tired. I don't want to work like I did. I don't make as much as I once did and still have lots of previous expenses. I neglect the taxes, for 2 years. It catches up with me last year and I am forced to go to my mother for help. This is the time I re-enter AA. I pay off the tax bills and adjust my spending habits for a brief time and then return to being lax again.

The message:  "Money is cunning, baffling, powerful.  It is not a game to play with.  You will not win."

Insanity is indeed doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

While I realize that I literally just did a 4th Step about money,  Step 1 still needs repeating: I admit I am powerless over money and that my life has become unmanageable. This is where I begin.

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